Australia and New Zealand
Mike and Judy Henderson
March 21 to April 9, 2019
I've put the map of our changed itinerary here so you can see where we are.
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3/30/2019 (Saturday) We had a spectacular sunrise this morning.
The Tauck people arranged a tour of the Dunedin area for today. First we went to a high lookout point where there was a memorial to commemorate the first European settlement of New Zealand in 1840.
We had a wonderful view of the area, as shown in this panoramic picture.
On our return to the city the bus driver pointed out Baldwin Street, a residential street in Dunedin, that is the world's steepest residential street.
At the upper reaches of the street the angle is 19° (or 35%) - 1:2.86. That is, for every 2.86 meters horizontally, the road rises one meter. Here's a picture taken from the web which shows how steep the road is. The 19 degrees is calculated as arctan(1/2.86) and the 35% is calculated as 100*(1/2.86). A road at 45° would have a grade of 100%.
Then we went to the First Church of Otago.
We were greeted by the retired minister.
He told many stories about the history of the church and the area, and with his quiet voice he never lost our interest. Here's a view of the interior of the church.
We were scheduled to go to the botanical gardens next, but we kept seeing people in kilts, with bagpipes. There was a national contest in town for marching bands consisting of bagpipes and drums. We made an unplanned stop and watched some of the bands marching by. I did some videos of the marching bands, which are more interesting than still photos because they capture the movements of the drummers. I can't load a video from the ship because the Internet access is too slow, but I'll try to get them posted when we get home. Here are a few still photos.
We talked with one of the bagpipers.
And here's that video I finally got posted:
I decided to walk back to the ship instead of going to the botanical gardens. On the way, I found the famous Dunedin donut shop, the Nova Cafe. It's located on the "octagon" in the center of the city. [Update: It closed March 16, 2023.]
Here's the famous donut - an injectable gut bomb (they're bigger than they look in the picture). Once you purchase one of the donuts, you take it to a station where you can inject it with your choice of sweet filling. I looked, but didn't try one.
I walked back to the ship but almost got lost. There's a railway line between the city and the dock area and it's tricky to find the path over the train tracks. Gave me a good workout.
That afternoon, about 4pm, we gathered on the back deck for a sailing party as the ship got under way.
And the ship slipped away from Dunedin and headed to the open sea.
We had dinner and then to bed. Tomorrow we arrive in Akaroa.
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3/31/2019 (Sunday) We were anchored in Akaroa when we woke up this morning. Another dramatic sunrise.
We had to tender in to Akaroa.
Here's some of the group on the tender.
Akaroa is very small - the permanent population in the 2013 census was 624. The Tauck people had to scramble to find a tour for us. We were taken to a private museum of the native Māori and European settlers.
I won't try to review the museum here, although it was very interesting. This is one building representing a European house, built with very wide, rough wooden planks.
I thought this Māori carving looked like Homer Simpson.
After we left the museum we stopped at Barry's Bay Cheese factory.
Unfortunately, we did not get a tour of the factory, but we did get to visit the gift shop and sample some of the cheese.
The bus brought us back to town and some of us got off at the edge of town, where there was a car show going on. Many American muscle cars were in the show.
We had lunch at a local restaurant and then walked back to the dock to catch the tender.
The captain was on the tender with us. He had changed to civvies and went into town for a jog.
We attended a talk about New Zealand history and then had dinner. Tomorrow is Lyttelton.
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4/1/2019 (Monday) We docked in Lyttelton and the group gathered for the tour of Christchurch.
Christchurch has been in the news recently, first for the very destructive earthquake on February 22, 2011 and then for the terrorist attack on two mosques on March 15, 2019.
The tour bus took us over the mountain instead of through the tunnel between Christchurch and Lyttelton, to show us what it was like before the tunnel was built. We saw some interesting scenery.
We stopped at a lookout point were we could look down on Christchurch. It was very windy and fairly cool.
We did get a nice view of Christchurch.
We walked along a path in Mona Vale Park in Christchurch.
Then we went to the downtown area of Christchurch and stopped at a square near the Cardboard Cathedral and the 185 Empty Chairs memorial. I went to the 185 Empty Chairs memorial first.
This was initially planned to be a temporary art installation but has been very popular and will probably become a permanent installation. The chairs represent the variety of chairs being used by some of the victims at the moment the earthquake struck, which was during working hours.
They encourage you to choose a chair and to sit in it. I didn't have a lot of time, but I picked a chair quickly and asked someone to take a picture of me, with my camera.
Near that is the Cardboard Cathedral, initially planned as a temporary facility until the original church can be restored or rebuilt. It's called "Cardboard" because the A-frame is made of tubes of cardboard. See the link for more information about its construction.
Here's a view inside the church. I think this picture makes the church look smaller than it really is.
Here's a view from the side that shows how wide it really is. There are about eleven chairs in each row, one row on each side.
As we drove through the city the driver pointed out this memorial to the victims of the World Trade Center attack on September 11, 2001. It displays steel from the World Trade Center. Picture taken through the bus window.
The 2011 earthquake caused major damage in Christchurch. Perhaps the worst was the collapse of the CTV Building, in which 115 people were killed, about 60% of all the deaths from the earthquake. Seventy of the 115 were foreign students (27 were Japanese) who were attending English language classes at a school located in the building.
Here's a before and after picture of the building (taken from the web).
There's a lot of new construction in Christchurch.
But still a lot of damaged buildings, even eight years after.
We were able to leave the bus in the center of town to do some exploring on our own. This sculpture was at the place where the bus stopped.
Here's Judy playing the piano.
Liz came to help - to play four hand piano.
We went to a nearby restaurant - Fiddlesticks - for lunch.
The tram line ran right by the restaurant so I was able to get this picture of one of the street cars.
After lunch Judy and I walked into the park, and I continued to the Al Noor Mosque, where the terrorist shooting occurred earlier this year.
They invited me (and others) to come into the mosque, and I did. I expressed our condolences to the Imam and to a woman staff member. She told me about the shooting and how the Imam had ducked behind the Minbar and saw some of the killings. As an aside, I knew that I needed to take my shoes off, but I didn't know if I was supposed to have my head covered or not. I decided to remove my hat.
Although they may have permitted it, I did not ask to take any pictures in the mosque. When I left, I took this picture of the entrance.
It was a very moving experience. The Muslim people in the mosque were very open and welcoming.
As we were walking back through the park, Judy saw this California redwood.
We made our way back to the shuttle stop and boarded the 2pm shuttle. This time we traveled to Littelton through the tunnel.
We were back to the ship in just a few minutes - much faster than the trip over the mountain.
That evening, about 6pm, an anniversary celebration was held on the rear deck for Ponant's 33rd year of service. Here's the guests on the back deck. The ship photographer took a picture of the group from the dock at the rear of the ship.
The captain and some of his officers were one deck up, behind the banner.
They offered champagne in the colors of red, white and blue, the colors of the French flag. They achieved this by putting colored liqueur in the bottom of the glass and then adding champagne.
Then it was time for dinner and to bed.